Sound-offs

Last fortnight Chicago newspaper editors received a pressagent's handout marked "personal & confidential." It read: "Attached is a brief announcement of what we think will be one of the most spectacular appearances ever made by General Charles Gates Dawes. We have been personally informed by the General . . . that in his talk to be given before the Chicago Association of Commerce . . . he will make the very startling pronouncement, based on facts, figures and charts, that the Depression will definitely end on May 8, 1935."

Last week General Dawes addressed 800 lunching Chicago businessmen on "The Coming Recovery in Durable Goods and the End of the Depression." On the wall were charts of the depressions of 1873 and 1893. These the onetime Vice President of the U. S. used to illustrate his contention that a pent-up demand for the products of heavy industry had in both cases burst forth precisely five years and six months after the first stockmarket crash. Barked the good General: "The demand for durable goods . . . in a Depression, while it always rises last, always rises fastest. Accordingly, I suggest that not later than June or July of next year should be the beginning of the great sustained demand for durable goods due to the accumulation for five years of postponed demands, and this time should also mark the commencement of the year of full business prosperity in this country."*

Unmentioned went the magical date of May 8, 1935.

Earlier in the week Col. Leonard P. Ayres, Cleveland Trust Co.'s famed vice president economist, declared: "The one essential shortcoming of the recovery program is that it has not yet found out how to induce a business recovery. " Comparing the economic machine to a stalled automobile, Col. Ayres twitted: "We found long ago that the starter is out of order. We have done what is customary in such cases, and have arranged to have the machine pushed, in this instance, with public appropriations which have been pushing the machine along for more than a year without any indication that it will soon become self-propelling. When long continued pushing fails to start a stalled automobile the evidence is conclusive that something is wrong with the mechanism. . . ."

Biggest sound-off of the week came from President Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. of General Motors Corp.: "Let us relegate to the museum of economic monstrosities the theory of scarcity as a factor in promoting industrial recovery. . . . Today the magic possibilities of industrial regimentation and the so-called planned economy no longer cast the spell of yesterday. That spell is broken. That is the most important thing that has happened."

*Same day in Manhattan Federal Housing Administrator James A. Moffett announced that his remodeling drive had rolled up a total of $145,000,000 of durable goods business in the past three months, was now creating activity at the rate of more than $2,000,000 per day.

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